


Red

by mrstater



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Caretaking, F/M, Future Fic, Insanity, Quintuple Drabble, Self-Harm, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Dragon has three heads, and Daenerys now has none!</i> Daenerys loses the war, and her mind. Jorah helps her find it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

She was as mad as the Mad King, by the time the war was over, but they never called her the Mad Queen, because she never wore the crown.   
  
Some said she lost her mind when Jon Snow cut off the heads of her dragons ( _The Dragon has three heads,_ they mocked her in her defeat, _and Daenerys now has none!_ ) but her white-cloaked Lord Commander knew that she had broken before that, when she'd looked out on the cities to which she'd laid waste, burning them to the ground.   
  
_Red for fire_ , Daenerys had said, and tore the dragon banners from her standards and threw them into the smoldering piles of ash that had once been homes and houses of worship for the gods old and new. _And red for blood_.   
  
There had been very little blood, in fact, because of all the fire. Save for her own, when Jorah found her in her tent, scrubbing her snow-white hands until they cracked and bled. _The blood of my people…the blood of my children…the blood of little Hazzea…I can't get it off…It won't come off my hands…_ He'd bound Daenerys' hands in clean strips of white linen, and held her as she continued to mutter, wrapped in his own white cloak, so she could not tear the bandages off and make her raw skin bleed again. (They'd called her father the Scab King, and Jorah would not have her inherit that name.)  
  
King Jon Snow offered her sanctuary in the Red Keep, granted her clemency because she was his blood. _Blood of your blood?_ came her reply, and her laughter rippled through the Red Keep, before it turned to weeping as she looked at the four sandstone walls around her. _Red for fire and red for blood,_ she wailed…   
  
…and put her fists through a window.   
  
Fresh blood stained the shredded bandages as she looked down at the destruction she'd wrought on King's Landing with her dragons before her brother's bastard slew them.   
  
So once again Jorah bound her hands in fresh strips of white linen, then he bundled her up in a cloak of white fur, trading his own worn as her Queensguard for a bearskin to match hers, and took her north.  
  
North, where the snows lay deep over the scorched plains and villages.   
  
North, where it seemed there was no color but white. Powder dusting the branches of trees, ice coating the trunks.   
  
And she was sedate.   
  
Until their big northern horses drew their sledge up to the longhall of logs, the gates carved with the woman clad in bear fur suckling a babe and wielding a battleaxe flung wide open to reveal the door of the keep, newly painted per Jorahs' instruction.   
  
Then, Daenerys sat up in his arms, and whispered, "Red."   
  
Not for fire.   
  
Not for blood.   
  
"Red for _home_."

 


End file.
